A New World
by Infini0n
Summary: The Wanderer has escaped from the vault a week after his father, but they traveled in different directions. after eight years of traveling the world and helping people all over, what will he finally think when he picks up his father's train again. The story of the Wasteland wanderer from fallout 3 with a major twist. rated M for language, violence, mature situations/themes


**Hey everybody, Infini0n here again with another tidbit that I couldn't help but put to text. This is the start of the story of my wanderer, or at least, my version of the wanderer. I would like to continue this story but I have no idea when I will do so. So… as of right now, A one-shot. But definitely is to be continued later. just for warning, I changed the timeline and tech around a bit so the bombs actually fell after the operation of anchorage in 2113ish instead of 2046 And the tech of the Ancient world has been scaled up to that time as well. And there will be many more animals and trees as the world did not turn into a lifeless desert and stay that way after the Great War, it did recover at lest a little bit. Hope you like it.**

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**A New World**

**Prologue: a new start, a new life.**

**Date: August-12-2476**

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The young man walking alone through the craggy and sandy barren soil (if you grace it with such a gentle description) was parched, even more so than he originally believed possible. As it turns out, life in a vault really was a very sheltered existence. He had always known that, of course, but it was not revealed to him exactly how true it was until he had taken his first look at what had become of the surface since the bombs fell 363 years ago.

It was a wasteland. With dry air that parched your throat and little to no wind to give relief from the scorching heat. Though, in the shade it actually wasn't all that hot. It was actually pretty comfortable. That made those little patches of trees and ruins very valuable.

In his first day he learned that lesson. Never travel in daylight, if you can help it. It was just simply too hot. So every evening for the past near month, he would travel during the sundown hours.

His first week he had found a large oasis resting in a valley between two cliff faces. It had fresh water and fruits which would have been perfect for a struggling wanderer to survive in, if not for the ferocious mutations that seemed more wolf than anything else. Just much larger, and more hungry. He managed to refill his empty water bag which, with his second full one, would enable him to live for another 2 weeks with careful rationing. But that was three weeks ago.

Since then he's survived encounters with foot long ants, Giant mosquitoes,

, the unholy offspring of a bear and the boogey man, that freakish mutated lizard-thing that looked something like a mix between a crocodile and a raptor from the cretaceous period, and a zombie. No lie, it was a zombie. Well, it was actually a small hoard of zombies. How he survived that encounter, he had no idea. They had managed to cut him up a bit, but he's the one that walked out alive. Thank God for small favors. Those were just a small few of several dozen such encounters with creatures just as bad or worse that he really did not want to think about.

Currently the young man was walking through the ruins of what he guessed used to be a large town. He figured that he would be able to find supplies in some of the buildings but most of them were stripped clean. He did manage to find a well that had clean water. That meant that someone or something had used it inside the past month or so. At least he knew there _were_ people out here. Cranking the well's centuries old pump system he filled his water bags but that was about all he could find in the ancient ruin. He had almost lost all hope of finding anything useful till he caught a light in corner of his eye.

He immediately ceased all movement and disappeared in the pitch black of the overturned tankers shadow which he had been walking around. He took a few long seconds to scan the area with his peripheral vision to see if he could locate the source of the light. Another thing he had encountered during the last month were very large and very nasty lightning bugs and he did NOT want a repeat of that meeting.

He sat still taking long, steady, silent breaths waiting.

It took ten seconds.

The light flashed again over on the other side of a hill to his left, almost out of his range of sight. He was surprised he had caught a glimpse of it. He turned his head slightly so he could catch it again if it light up.

His patience was, once again, rewarded with another dim flash.

_It's not moving, so it shouldn't be one of those bugs…, could be a fire… or it could be something worse._

His thoughts were silent; he hadn't spoken for almost two weeks. That was when he learned that noise drew attention from… unwanted predators.

_Fire, means people, and people, mean food and water. _The boy hadn't eaten since the morning before last and he was ravenously hungry. He'd even gladly take a slice of one of those giant ugly mole rat looking things. And that's saying something. Those things were not made to eat. They tasted like a witches skull boiled in cat urine for three weeks, which is to say, downright ungodly nasty. The first thing he ate after leaving the Vault was a mole rat. He had tested the meat with his Pipboy and discovered that it was ridiculously high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. Almost as if to eat it would be eating chunks of heaven. Just goes to support the theory that the worse it tastes the better it is for you. A man could survive on nothing but mole rat meat for a lifetime and need nothing else but water and still come out in better shape than an Olympic athlete. The only problem was getting it past your mouth.

Suffice it to say, he was hungry.

Silent and stealthy as death, the boy scampered up the hill to the top and peered over the ridge. There were some ruins along with the skeletal remains of what he could only guess was a parking garage sitting off to one side of what could have only once been a highway. Most of the building had collapsed but the center of it had been cleared to make room for a camp. The ruble, including the dried out husks of ancient vehicles, acted as its own barrier, barring entrance from any direction save the south.

He pulled a spyglass out of his pack and lifted it to his eye. It may have only been a hundred yards away, but he likes to be sure, it was night after all. With the spyglass he could see the camp clearly. There were 4 large tents placed haphazardly at the four corners of the camp. There were 8 people sitting around the fire, one cutting up chunks of some kind of meat, two patrolling around the entrance, and one was standing near the door to one of the tents like he was guarding something.

_Interesting, wonder what he's guarding?_

The boy lifted the spyglass from his eye and mentally took stock of his gear. All he had from his life in the Vault were the two gear belts that the two security officers had thrown to him before he left complete with several clips of ammo and two batons, then there was his medical kit which up to now had been completely exhausted except for a stimpack that he'd stuffed into one of his many pockets and the medical utensils that were made of type 4 stainless steel. He had been walking on an empty stomach since the morning before last when he had eaten that MRE he had found in a truck a week ago. Any self respecting American man or woman of the old world would have been happy to take in a fellow survivor. But from what he'd seen so far, it looked like the old world was wiped from everything but long distant memories. It is actually entirely possible that the vaults could be the last trove of knowledge and hospitality from the old world. So he would probably be an incredible asset to any group that took him in. And there is always safety in numbers. But he had a bad feeling about these guys.

_All right, let's think about this rationally, why are you stopping? Fear? _He grunted and looked into his back pack… it was still empty. As if he actually expected anything less…

_My rations are gone, and I have literally no idea when or even __**if**__ I will get more. I've barely managed to survive by the skin of my teeth for the past month. So survival in the near future will most probably be a near impossibility. I need to group up with someone that knows how to survive in this world. This group obviously knows how to survive. _His arguments did not make the bad feeling go away. So he continued.

_But these guys do not look friendly…_

He considered the consequences of moving on without proper equipment and supplies, or going down to meet them and came to a decision.

_If they're not friendly, I'll just move on. I managed to get away from that raptor-thing, so I think I can handle getting around a bunch of sleepy humans_

Content that he had come to an intelligent decision he crept toward the light. It took him only a few moments to sneak around the two guards patrolling around the camp. Once past them it was easy to get to a wreckage near the fire. Once he had set himself behind an old car wreckage he leaned to the side till he could see into the camp.

What he saw inside that wall would scar his mind for the rest of his life. The first humans he would see in the wasteland were average people with deep tans that wore armored clothing made of anything that they could get their hands on. Some of them had pieces of rusty car doors and tires, and others were pieces of leather and denim woven together into one garment. The thing that had made him nearly gag though were the corpses laying around the camp. There were at least a half dozen and most of them had been hacked to pieces, and the ones that weren't were mutilated beyond recognition. And what's worse, the man that was cutting up the chunk of meat that he had previously thought was an animal of some kind was actually a human corpse. He was chopping chunks of meat off the body and tossing them to the others sitting around the fire who would in turn jam a spike through it and hold it over their fire like a skewer to cook. From what he could see, it looked like they all had firearms and some form of melee weapon even if it was just a lead pipe.

What little bile was left in his stomach made it's way to the ground as the sight made him hurl. Once he could control himself again he thought, _"Their cannibals!"_

The boy just incorporated that information into what he already knew and came to an immediate conclusion. _I think I'll just go hunting for squirrels and molerats._

He could not believe that there were people that would do this to other humans. The thought almost made him start retching, but he held it in check. He was about to crawl off to a safer area to call home for the daylight when he heard a muffled whine. He looked back into the camp and saw one of the campers exiting a tent with a prisoner in tow. It was a young girl, maybe 15 years old, she was bruised and cut, but even beyond that she was pretty with long blond hair. Under all the filth, blood, and gore he was sure that the girl would have been beautiful. She was struggling but the much larger man dragging her didn't even register that she was trying to get away. The large man walking into one of the tents on the far side of the camp with a big ugly smile on his face looked like he didn't have a care in the world.

"JoeBoe!" one of the men at the fire called when they caught sight of him and the girl. "What the Hell do you think yer doing?"

"what the fuks it look like I'm doing, I'ma have some fun with the merchandise."

"thems slaves are for selling, Not playing with!"

"Come on boss. We been out here for weeks'n haven't with getting any prettys, at least any that didn't have to be put down. It's been almost'a month since I've had any ass an I'm itchen for sometin pretty." To emphasize his point he lifted the girl clean off the ground and held her tear stained face for all gathered around the fire to see. Nods and murmurs of assent were gathered from around the fire. "Besides" the brute, JoeBoe, continued. "We all hear the mess you get up to with that redhead."

Boss's eyes grew wide at that reveal and just stuck his head in his bowl and waved him off. "Fine then… just don't break her yah brute. You know we won't get paid fer em if they're broken."

Joeboe looked giddy as a schoolgirl when the "Boss" assented. "Sure boss, I'll take good care of her." Then he dragged her to the tent furthest from the fire and pulled her inside.

There was only one thing that the boys mind could come up with that made any sense that JoeBoe was planning to do with the girl.

_No, Freaking WAY!_

There was no way he was going to let that brute just… have his way with her like that...

Without taking a moment to consider what he was going to do, there really was only one option now anyway, he quickly maneuvered his was around the camp to the backside of the tent the brute had dragged his prize into. Once behind the tent he pulled a long knife, a short sword really, that he had made about two weeks ago from welding a motorcycle handle and a rusty lawnmower blade together. He had sharpened it every chance he got. A crude weapon… a very sharp crude weapon. It would do well for what he had planned.

Thankfully the tent he was about to enter was far enough away from the rest of the camp that any noise that was made inside was covered up by the banter from around the fire, and no one seemed particularly interested to watch what was going on. He figured that after he killed the man in the tent he would have maybe 15 minutes before anyone bothered to check up on their friend. That would give him tiem that he would need very desperately to run with the girl and hide. After that…

_I'll just have to improvise I guess._

With a few deep steadying breathes he cleared his mind and snuck around the tent to the door in the front and slipped inside keeping to the shadows, small sword in hand.

The moment he slipped through the door the girl caught sight of him. She had been thrown onto her back and was being thoroughly groped by the large man, who had taken no notice of the shadow clad visitor. The boy simply shook his head and held up a finger to silence her, she got the message, almost anything this stranger would have planned couldn't be as bad as what joeBoe wanted to do to her. Without another moment's hesitation, the boy switched his grip on the weapon to a reverse grip and moved in.

Lindsey could not believe how crappy her life had become in so short a time. She and her dad had been traveling with a small trading caravan toward a place her dad had told her stories of since she was little. A place where they could live safely and peacefully. Her dad called it Underworld. Said it was a place where ghouls could live without fear of being attacked. And now that she was fourteen, she was ready for the journey.

Up until now, they were wanderers. They went from place to place, ruin to ruin in search of useful things that they could sell to merchants and trade caravans for caps and survival equipment. But it had all gone horribly wrong.

The Caravan that dad had chosen to travel with had stopped for their seventh night and was ambushed while most of the caravan was asleep. The Raiders had taken them without any trouble.

They were just walking along when they had been ambushed by these raiders; they were left alive and had heard from the other prisoners that they were being taken to a city where they would be sold as slaves.

They've been on the road for almost two weeks now with the Raiders. Making camp at night then taking off again in the morning, slowly making their way to wherever it was their lives were going to end.

Lindsey had been born a slave, and had been sold the moment she was old enough to leave her mother. But Bob, her dad, had rescued her and raised her. They were happy, till now.

She had been crying silently to herself, not able to make a lot of noise past the gag tied tight over her mouth. She was leaning against her dad and another girl that was a little older than her. Maybe seventeen with long red hair the color of firelight. She was very pretty but Lindsey thought that the girl wished she wasn't. The girl, who had been termed the name 'Red Head', had been carried off every other night by one of the brutes. Tears came to her eyes when they came but she always stood up and let them take her. Muffled screaming always followed when they carried her away and she always came back crying past her gag.

Lindsey may have been young but she knew what evil men did with girls like her. Her beauty was the only thing that kept her alive.

They sat together, huddled into one of the tents corners seeking solace in their combined warmth and shared pain. It was made difficult by the fact that their hands were tied behind their backs and they were half starved. Bob seemed to do his best to radiate confidence for the two young girls, but it was hard to do when you were beat half to death, which really does look bad when you already looked like a corpse. He tried to fight them off when they came, but ghouls usually aren't very strong.

They sat that way for a few hours, silently praying to themselves that the Brutes wouldn't come tonight, trying to find sleep when the biggest of the raiders came into the tent.

Everyone in the tent knew why he was here. As did Red head. When she saw him walk into the tent a few tears leaked out of her eyes but she shakily stood up. Everyone else in the tent moved out of his way as he walked to Red Head's corner. If they didn't they were beaten.

When he stopped in front of her, she gave him a defiant look but seemed to accept her fate. But her eyes said _I'm not broken by a long shot but I know there's no point in fighting_.

He took one look at her then sneered, "Your used, Red." He took one look at Lindsey and her pretty face and smiled. "I need sumtin fresh." Red grew wide eyed in horror when she saw his look and seemed to throw herself at the massive man almost pleading but he lifted her clean off the floor and hurled her to the other side of the tent. thenHe reached out and grabbed her face in one huge filthy hand and inspected her then gave an evil smile. She whimpered and fresh tears streamed down her eyes as. She couldn't help but adore the older girl for wht she attempted to do for her but terror and fear had taken over her heart and soul as thoughts of what he would do streamed into her young mind. The mind of a young girl that grew up in the Wasteland and knew just how terrible it could be.

"You and me are going to have some fun tonight guuurly." He laughed and lifted her up off the ground with barely any sign of trying. Bob shot up fairly quick for a man so beat up and in his 140's. The large man just swung an arm and slammed him back to the ground. "Get down Zombie!" he seethed. "I'll not have you polluting my fun."

With that he dragged her out of the tent. He dragged her struggling and whimpering form up to another tent before her captor was stopped by the apparent leader of this band of savages. She didn't care what they were saying anymore, she knew what was going to happen to her and she couldn't stop it, so there wasn't any point anymore. He grasped her face and pointed it to the other raiders around the fire, it hurt. Her hopes were dashed when the leader waved them away, but she caught something in the corner of her eye, behind a giant chunk of burnt metal not but twenty yards from the fire. She saw something but didn't bother to register it until she saw it move. It was a man wearing a clean blue suit of some kind. Her view was interrupted a moment later when the brute pulled her into the tent on the far side of the camp.

Once in he threw her, none too gently, onto one of several makeshift beds of padded down blankets and sheets.

He just looked down on her hungrily for a few moments before he stripped off his shirt revealing a massive and powerfully built hair covered chest and stomach then got down on top of her and started groping every bit of skin he could get his filthy hands on. She tried wiggling out of his grasp and fighting back, but her hands were tied and her mouth was gagged, not to mention the man on top of her was easily three, maybe four times her own tiny physical size. There was no way for her to get out of this, and she knew it.

Tears freely streamed out of her eyes as she whimpered and cried at the injustice of what was being done to her until she saw someone step into the tent. It was a man, she knew that much, and from the light she noticed the same blue colored suit she saw that the man behind the metal chunk was wearing. She almost screamed before she saw him raise a finger to his lips and gently shake his head. He just told her to _Be quiet…_

It took her less than a moment for her to consider her options; she could warn the monster on top of her and still be raped then sold into slavery, or worse. _Or I could take my chances with this new guy._ She didn't trust men, but this new one definitely looked more appealing an option than the monster roughly groping her body. She stayed silent. He nodded calmly then lifted a blade of some kind, a really long knife. And jump on top of the big man, he slammed his knife into the man's back and threw his other arm around his neck and pulled.

The bigger man reacted instantly, his head lifted in a silent cry, almost as if he could not speak then he slumped over… dead.

The man in blue just pushed him out of the way then slowly stepped towards Lindsey. She instinctively pushed away from him. He held up his hands and quietly said, "I'm not going to hurt you."

It was then he noticed he was still holding the knife; he quickly dropped it then gently kneeled in front of her and held his hands away, nonthreatening, "See… No weapons… no danger from me." His voice was soft, almost, he was trying to calm her down she realized. It was nice in comparison to the brutes in the camp. It sounded like her dad when he has happy, but without the gravely undertone.

She studied him carefully. His skin was very pale for a wandered. The palest she'd ever seen, not white, but very pale. And he was very clean. He had very little grime in his brown hair and his skin did not look rough. His clothes were dirty to, but they were the best clothes she'd seen in a while. There were no strings missing and no patches, they looked like new. On the shirt was a string of white shapes that didn't make sense to her. There was a straight ling going up followed by a circle followed by a final crocked line topped with another one. Maybe they were words like Bob sometimes told her about. But she could only guess.

"Do you understand me?"

She noticed that she had phased out for a second and had not showed she understood him

She was still crying but she understood, so she nodded softly.

He smiled softly, "Good," he then motioned to himself and calmly recited, "My name is Joshua." then he pointed to the gag wrapped over her mouth, "Is it alright if I get rid of that gag?"

She nodded cautiously and whimpered, elated that she may have been saved. Her wager was right.

He smiled again, she was starting to like that, his smile wasn't like other smiles she had seen, his was soft, almost warming, and his eyes were soft too. A soft brown/green, Lindsey had heard her dad call them… Hazel, his eyes were hazel. She whimpered slightly and closed her eyes when he reached behind her head but stayed fairly quiet as he untied her gag. It took him only a few short seconds then her lips were free. She gasped slightly at her first whole breath of air in over a week.

"There, now you can speak," he was still smiling lightly, but she stayed silent. Her resolve hardened, she still did not like men. His smile dimmed a little but did not go away. "if you want to." He continued.

He then motioned to her hands. "Want me to get rid of that?" once again she answered with a careful nod.

"Then turn and give me your hands."

She hesitated for a moment, but did as she was told, her gift told her she could trust this man, she didn't fully believe it, but she was starting to like him… a little. She heard the _Shink_ as his knife cut through the binds on her hands and her hands were free. She massaged her wrists and stared at her savoir.

The man, Joshua looked at her calmly then motioned behind him. "that's better, but now we have to get out of here, they'll be wondering what's taking dear old JoeBoe so long if we wait much longer."

She pulled away from his hand when he motioned her to the back wall of the tent and shook her head vigorously. "Not without my father…" her voice was creaky and dry from misuse but she said it anyway… she would not leave her father behind when someone could help him too.

He paused for a moment, eyes calculating. Then raised an eyebrow, "There are more people being held?".

Lindsey nodded sharply. "And I'm not leaving without my father!"

He frowned slightly, "and I take it they're all in the same tent you were pulled out of?"

She nodded.

Joshua sighed deeply, "Miss,"

"Lindsey," she interrupted

His smile returned for a moment, it was definitely warming now, before he continued, "Lindsey, how many are in that tent?"

"There are nine of us."

"Nine?"

She nodded again then waited.

"How about the guards, how many of the bad guys are there?"

"There are 15 of them," then she looked down at the dead one at her right and blinked, "Well, 14 now."

Joshua's eyebrows rose for a moment before he questioned again, "I saw twelve on my way in, where are the other two?"

"In the tent with the slaves." She said lightly. "They're making sure the slaves don't try to get away."

His face took on a deep look for a moment as if he was thinking hard, then nodded. "Alright Lindsey, I'll help you out, but I need you to do something for me."

She instantly put up her barriers again, "What?"

He simply got up and cut a long slit in the back of the tent then turned and looked at her with eyes that were no longer soft and warm, they were the same, but they were hard. "You will go out that hole and get on the other side of this hill. And you will stay there until either me, or your father comes and gets you. If you hear me say run, then you will run and not look back till you can't run anymore. Do you understand me?"

Lindsey shook her head, "No, I'm not going anywhere without my dad, Not when the Raiders still have him!"

He nodded lightly, "And I will get him, if I can. But I am about to take on 14 hardened murderers with nothing but a knife, and the pistols that our friend here used to own."

Her eyes opened wide as she took in the meaning of what he said. "but you,"

He stopped her by pushing his fingertips against her lips, then he said "I will get your dad, but I need you over that hill before I start."

She nodded slowly then stepped out the tent as he held it apart for her. He stepped out after her. "Now, go on. We don't have all night." She ran up the hill till she stood on the outside slope then turned and crawled up the hill to the peak and just sat there and watched the man that saved her life; try to save her dad and her friends.

Joshua watched the girl as she ran up the hill. "Well… if this is not the most undesirable situation I've ever thrust myself into, I really don't know what is."

He knew she would probably stop at the top, but that would be sufficient. He just needed her out of the line of fire so he could attack and kill these…_ what did she call, them?_ _Raiders?_... so he could kill these raiders.

He stopped and just thought for a second. _I've killed a man_. It wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. It was actually really easy_._

_If tonight is anything to judge by then all that military hand to hand and combat training will come in real handy in this new world._

But that man had a family, at least at a time. The thought made Joshua sick, but he quenched it when he thought of what the man was going to do with Lindsey. He couldn't help but feel sorrow for the girl. Upon seeing her close up, he deduced that she was probably no more than 14. She was young and innocent; there was no reason that she had to suffer something like this.

_I have to get her dad back._ He was not going to let these monsters, these _Raiders_ to take her world from her like it had taken his. No one deserved that.

With his resolve affirmed he stepped back into the tent and gathered everything of use from JoeBoe's corpse. Turns out he had seen correctly. JoeBoe had two pistols both were heavy 44. revolvers, holding 6 rounds apiece. He did a quick check of the firing mechanism and found them in near perfect condition he didn't know who this JoeBoe was, but this guy definitely loved his weapons. There was also a combat knife and a fragmentation grenade of all things.

_Am I not just the luckiest guy in the world right now._ Joshua smirked at his own luck, this would make it easier to thin the herd. He found a bag of bottle caps, he could not begin to imagine what Joeboe had been saving those for but that could wait till later. lastly he found 27 rounds for his pistols. He felt really good about this. He now had two pistols, a grenade, and a new knife. He still wasn't sure if he could pull this off, but it was definitely looking possible now.

This was unreal. He pulled Joeboe's belt off and put it on, it had the holsters for the 44.'s. they were two old leather style holsters that looked like they came fresh out of an old western. With that he made sure they were loaded and pressed them into his holsters, slipped his sword and knife into his belt and gripped the grenade. Then he stole out the back of the tent into the night once again.

In moments he was on the other side of the camp behind a car less than a dozen yards away from the fire. Most of the campers were still seated around it. He could hear them talking.

The 'Boss' was leading the conversation. "Where the fuks Joe?"

"He's still in there with the girl." One of the women around the fire answered.

"well, somebody go check on him, he's taking too long, and I don't want him hurtin the merchandise."

"Righty boss,"

_Darn it, I need to do this now. _ In less than a second he pulled the grenade's pin, and hefted it into the air, it landed right in the middle of the fire.

_Bullseye_. (what else would you expect from a little league champion pitcher?) A moment later it went off. The entire center of the camp erupted in a fiery cocoon of metal and wooden shrapnel, and bodies. As they were all no more than 6 feet from the fire the 7 people seated around the fire died instantly. The one that got up to check on Joshua's first target lay writhing on the ground a few yards further.

Joshua stepped out from behind the car wreckage and aimed, he pulled the trigger and with a thunderous boom, her head exploded. Then the return fire came.

"_Nine down and six to go." _Was all he thought as he raised his pistols and fired back. The man at the chop table went first. He had dropped his cleaver and hefted what looked to be a shotgun and was about to fire when Joshua's bullet tore through his left eye, the split second he got to watch the man made him think that most of his brain matter followed the bullet through his head. He hit the ground at the same time Joshua leveled and fired his pistols again. The guards inside the slave tent came out and fired along with their outside guard. But at ten yards, Joshua's accuracy was still very good. He pulled the triggers three time total putting one bullet through each of the men's heads.

By now the last two guards had turned around from the front. They both had assault rifles. They had their riffles up and fired the moment they had him in their sights.

Joshua jumped for the rubble around the fire. He hit the ground as their rounds tore through the place he had been standing moments before. After a quick breath he leaned backwards out from his cover back on the ground and fired twice more. Both rounds found a home in the chest of the Raider on the right. The one on the left leapt away and behind a vehicle husk before Joshua could get a bead on her.

For a few moments nothing happened. Then Joshua heard the ping of something hitting the ground. He looked behind him and saw a frag grenade rolling only three feet behind him. Without a moment's hesitation he leapt over the mound of debris he had been hiding behind. The grenade went off a split second later. The mound he had been hiding behind was blown to bits. It had caught the explosion and saved his life, but the effects of the explosion had done their job. Joshua's world was spinning, and he couldn't hear a thing, except for the ringing.

He saw a figure walking toward him from the direction the raider had jumped, but he couldn't tell if it was her or not. He couldn't think. It was as if someone had taken his brain and plunged it into a vat of iced water. His brain could not complete a single thought. Until his vision cleared and he saw the female raider above him pointing her riffles barrel at his chest.

She spat on him, and her lips moved, since he couldn't hear at the moment he had to suffice with lip reading. "Fuk you bast..." and she was interrupted by something slamming into her chest from somewhere beyond Joshua's position. She looked up to just beyond where Joshua lay as blood bubbled from a hole in the center of her chest. She mouthed again "Fuk you too…" then she fell to the ground.

Joshua barely had time to wonder who had helped him before he saw the little blonde girl… _Lindsey_ slid to his side and found her big blue eyes looking worriedly into his._ how did you get behind the raider so fast? _He thought. "I'm Ok," he said aloud, but he still couldn't hear anything. She smiled lightly showing she understood and helped him to stand up. It took several attempts but he soon was standing with her help and they were shuffling along to the slave tent to free the people tied up inside.

Joshua could not believe what he had just done. He had risked his life to save nine people he didn't even know. He had just done something completely selfless and nearly paid with his life for it. It made him feel really good almost like he could fly. His dad was right. Doing something selfless for no reason other than because it was right really was it's own reward. And it felt amazing.

He grinned goofily as he limped his way to the slave tent till he saw something. A massive shadow moved out of the tent that JoeBoe had died in, except, JoeBoe wasn't dead. The shadow was him, and he looked pissed. Blood was slowly draining out the corner of his mouth and his right hand was drenched in blood, apparently his own blood, because he must have had one more pistol at the small of his back. And he had the pistol, another 44. In his right hand, aimed right at Lindsey's head.

Joshua reacted without thinking. In one movement he shoved Lindsey away from him and raised his right arm with his own 44.

The big guy fired first. Twice, both round landed squarely into Joshua's chest.

As Joshua was lifted off his feet by the shots he fired twice as well. One round landed solidly in JoeBoe's sternum, the second one landed just to the right and below his left eye shattering the cartilage that made up his nose.

Joshua hit the ground harder than he thought possible. But he still couldn't hear anything, _how infuriating. I'm dying and I can't even hear my own last words?!_

A moment later Lindsey was at his side screaming something. He still couldn't hear, and he couldn't read her lips because his vision was dimming. So he did what he felt he should do, what he knew he should, what he was certain his dad would have wanted him to do.

He grasped her small hand and placed his knife in it then he said, "Good luck…". He still couldn't hear it.

But one thing still bugged him, something that made no sense. Yeah, most people would be more worried about the fact that they would be dead in seconds, but Josh was _**not**_normal. He had always thought differently from the average person. Almost as if it was his gift to forever think from outside the box. The thought that plagued him now was. "_Who shot the raider?"_

He knew it was important to know there was another shooter out there that could be a potential ally but just when he thought he had remembered seeing something on top of the hill, it was frivolous. For he had drifted into darkness.

The Stranger simply stood and watched as the girl ran into the tent to get help for her hero. Rather amused that she had already grown so attached to him.

_Of course, we had planned it to work out like this, so I guess that it's good that it exceeded our expectations._

He just stood at the northern edge of the garage that the camp rested in. it was a mess. The boy was well trained, but that is what they had made the vaults for in the first place. To train the next generation. Didn't matter that the kid wasn't born there. He still got the training. That's what was important.

But now, seeing the constant trouble the boy managed to continuisly get himself wrapped up in it was probably a good thing he wasn't born in the vault, he would have been a pureblood then, and that would have left him dead. course, his mother and father knew they were special like the rest of the people born on the surface, but together… that would make a very… _interesting_ gift.

He looked at the bodies laying around the boy. It was simply amazing. A boy that had never killed a man in his life had so suddenly and violently turned himself into a killer to save people he didn't even know, from a fate that he knew was immoral. There weren't many people left in the wastes (what their organization deemed 'Earth's surface' after the bombs fell.) that would have done the same. Nowadays people tended to look after themselves.

He shivered at the term he used to describe what earth… their beautiful earth had been reduced to. All because of the love of power.

_The root of many evils, the Good Book calls it._ He smiled to himself as he quoted the old saying to himself. That is one thing drilled into every Stranger in their academy years. The boy's father had taught him well. But they had planned that as well. The one thing they hadn't planned for was that the father had grown his conscience back so quickly and left to finish his work on the purifier early.

Honorable… Honorable and justifiable… But foolish. The wasteland could wait till the boy had grown to his full potential. He should have waited for the boy to take his rightful place in the world. But by the father's standards, the boy had been ready.

And technically… he was right, but that rapid decision he made would cost them decades of careful planning and preparations. Now the boy had been thrust into the Wastes. ALONE!

The boy had nearly died seven times since he had taken on the responsibility of watching him. Of protecting him when the boy was incapable. The boy had managed very well, but in spite of his gift and the changes that the Vault machines had wrought on him, he was still only human. The boy would never be one of them…

The Stranger sighed as he remembered the future foretold by 1.

The kid would lead a hard life. But one that was also rich and full of all the wonderful things that life had to offer. It was just his Job to make sure the kid lived to see them.

The stranger fingered the grip of his 50. Affectionately and he swung his sniper rifle onto his back. Then he touched a button on the device that was set on his left forearm. It looked a lot like the boy's Pipboy, but it was black, and it had a great many more functions on it that made the Stranger's job that much easier. And he began to fade into nothingness. The last of him to disappear was his lips that slowly spread into a smirk.

_Good, luck kid. I have your back._

When Joshua next opened his eyes it was to darkness.

_I'm not dead…_

He was relieved. In spite of the damage he was sure he had suffered from the 44. Pistol rounds that tore through his chest, it was much better to be alive then dead.

The darkness cleared quickly after a few steady blinks, then he noticed it was probably early evening. He was laying on one of the makeshift beds in a tent, after careful examination he realized it was the tent that he had thought he had killed Joeboe in. the tear he had cut into the tents rear wall had been sewn together and patched over.

_How long have I been out?_

He tried to sit up, but that was when the pain hit. It felt like someone had hit him in the sternum with a sledge hammer. And not that little three pound one either, it was the big 20, maybe even 30 pounder. In all seriousness though, he really didn't care about the weight of the hammer, all he cared about at the moment was that it did not feel good. The thudding pain pounded him back into laying down again. He groaned when he hit the cushion, long and low…

"Uuuuugggghhhr." He tried to breathe deep to alleviate some of the pain, but that made it hurt worse.

_Well, at least I'm alive, _he heard talking outside the tent,_ and I can hear again. That's always a plus._

He saw some movement at the door flap to the tent and, if he could have, he would have screamed when he saw what had done it. The flap was pushed aside when nothing other than a zombie came waltzing through the door, flesh rotting, hair falling out, and all. Joshua was sure that he felt his heart stop. But a moment later when it beat again and that fear was alleviated, he decided that he may as well try his best to survive this encounter with the undead.

He waited for it to get close to his bed when he lashed out with a wicked punch to the gut which threw it to the ground, the moment his path was free, Joshua swung his legs out of the makeshift bed and made for the door as fast as his injuries would allow. But it was all for naught, as he soon learned, for outside there was another one and it was-

_Wait?... it's talking?_ There it stood talking with two humans. One was a youthful teenaged girl maybe eighteen years old with a svelte figure and long feiry red hair that hung low on her back, the other was a man in his upper twenties, if Josh had to guess, with shoulder length black hair. They both wore dirty clothing and had reddened wrists. They were probably the other prisoners that had been with Lindsey in the 'Slave' tent. The Zombie wore similar clothing and seemed to have similar wounds on it's own wrists, it was difficult to tell though because the zombies skin was very different than that of a human. They seemed to be deep in conversation before Joshua walked out of his tent. Currently they just stood there staring at him as if they had just seen a man walk on water. It took him only a few short moments to put two and two together.

"oh… so you're not…_ Dead_…" the 'non-zombie' shook it's heads.

"You are humans with some kind of mutation then?" it just nodded, seemingly dumbfounded.

He felt a warmth and a thumping in his chest and he looked down. Two red spots had grown on a white bandage that had been wrapped around his chest. And they were growing steadily darker.

He smirked a little bit then, with a motion indicating the 'non-zombie' in the tent then said, "I guess I owe him an apology then don't I?"

His eyes grew dim again as the pain and the thudding grew worse. He fell to his knees and grimaced in pain as he just sat there for a moment.

"Oh my God! Josh! What are you doing out of bed!"

He recognized that voice; just barely as he looked up and saw a little blonde girl with big baby blue eyes running toward him from the other side of the raider camp. There were bodies being burned over there. Smoke was billowing high into the air as the bodies burned.

_What is going on here Lindsey?_ He thought as if he could just project it directly into her mind. But nothing of the kind happened.

Instead he just fell over on his side. Before he hit the ground his world was swallowed by darkness.

Joshua's eyes once again opened to darkness. He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust before bothering to look around. He checked himself first this time. He had been freshly bandaged, but his torso was strapped to the bed.

_Understandable, given my last reaction when I saw the… non-zombies. _He smiled lightly at the fuzzy memory. Almost as if he had dreamed it. But he knew better, he could always tell the difference between his dreams and reality. That was defiantly reality. And these zombies… were alive.

_That my dear sanity, is what's called an Oxymoron. _He chuckled lightly to himself. The pain had greatly lessened since the last time he woke up. It made him wonder again, just how much time had passed since he had been shot.

A gravelly voice answered him, "It's been about four days."

Josh moved his head to see the source of the voice. It was the same non-zombie he had hit the last time he woke up. He stood by the door, seemingly reserved about being too close to the human that had hit him. Joshua smirked and waved lightly.

"Hey, sorry about hitting you last time…" he grimaced slightly at the memory, "I wasn't entirely myself, and I haven't had many meetings with your kind…."

The _Non_-Zombie just raised the scaled flesh that should have been an eyebrow.

"But in my defense, every one of your kind I've met before you have tried to eat me." _As if that makes it any better_.

The zombie just smiled lightly then opened his arms in a welcoming gesture. "well then, if that's the case then no offense taken." And He laughed. "Don't sweat it Vaultie. It's not the worst greeting I've ever been given and it certainly won't be the last time someone hits me for getting to close. I'm just glad you're not a damn bigot."

Joshua smiled and nodded then stopped, confused.

"Wait a second… what was that you called me?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"What… Vaultie?" Joshua nodded.

"that's what all you guys are called. We can tell by your skin tone usually. You were born and raised in a Vault. Most people have never met one of yah, but most of us know what it looks like." he smirked lightly before continuing, "Pale skin, a perfect physic, and well fed are hard things to come by on the surface."

"Oh," was all Joshua replied. It made sense. He had been raised in a vault, but he didn't think it would make him so easily identifiable.

After a few moments of thought he looked down at his chest again, this time he noticed Lindsey sleeping on a mat just next to his. She looked like she did when she was awake, innocent and harmless. It was hard for him to believe that she could shoot a raider. His mind pasued for a moment at that, he distinctly remembered that the shot had come from above his head, not from behind where Lindsey had come running from…there was another person out there that had helped him. _But who?_

But he knew that since he and the other people around him weren't dead, it really didn't matter. Some wandered had probably seen him in a bind and decided to help out. which, given what he had seen of his new world so far, must be ridiculously rare. And it irked him that the mystery would probably go unsolved till the day he died, but he could not help but wonder about it…

He heard the non zombie walk around the room and unclamp the belts that held him in place, then walked over to stand next to the girl, he pulled her cover over her a little more than patted her small form affectionately before he took a seat beside her, directly opposite of Joshua's bed.

The affectionate pat had told Josh who the non-zombie was,

"So, you must be the dad I almost died for."

The non-zombie just looked at him for a second before smirking. "She told me you were smart." He looked thoughtful for a moment then nodded. "The names Bob," and he stretched his hand out openly. And despite the entirely natural fear of not wanting to touch a horribly rotted corpse, Joshua took and shook it firmly.

"It is most certainly my pleasure, Bob. My names Joshua, but you can call me Josh, your daughter here has already figured that one out." He motioned to the girl sleeping between them. "She certainly is a wonder... you know I tried to get her out of here when I took down JoeBoe but she would hear nothing of it."

"Yeah, she has a big heart like that." He looked away for a moment, "that rare out here." he smiled, and then grimaced lightly. "But she may not be just mine anymore though."

Joshua raised a brow at that, "why's that?"

"She's gotten attached to you, Vaultie. She likes you. Hasn't left your side sense you last woke up. Guess she feels sort of responsible for what happened to you. That or maybe she thinks she's gotten a new pet." Bob chuckled at that but his gravelly voice made it sound more like wheezing, maybe even a haggard cough.

Josh just watched him for a few seconds while he watched Lindsey,

"She says that her gift told her that you were a good guy."

"What?"

"her gift." at john's blank stare he explained, "Sorry, that's what I tell her it is. It's actually like what you said. It's a mutation. Everyone born up here has at least one, whether it's noticeable or not. With hers, she can sense things about people that are normally not easily seen. She can see what your 'Alignment' is. At least, that's what she calls it."

"And you trust it, just like that?"

"I trust her interpretation." Bob Answered, "It hasn't been wrong yet."

Josh took that with a grain of salt. Mutations that tell you what people are prone to doing? That's a little hard to digest. A silence stretched for a few moments before josh built up the unction to ask his next query.

"I'm actually surprised you don't know about them, given how fast you've healed. I've seen lesser wounds kill bigger men kid… you should be dead."

It was Josh's turn to raise a brow.

"Don't get me wrong," Bob raised his hands placating. "I'm glad you're still kicking. And it would have killed her to see you kick it after what you did for us", he motioned to Lindsey's blond form at his side, "but you have to admit it, you have a very unusual gift. I've never seen anything like it."

Joshua couldn't help but acknowledge the fact that he should have died. There was just no way that he could have survived those two shots. But super healing? He was about to rebuff when he remmemberd moments from fights over the past month when he had been sure he was going to die and somehow, he didn't, he remembered feeling like he had been cut up and stabbed and kicked and bruised but every time he woke up and checked himself for injuries there were always none or they were minor. His intelagent mind knew that there was no way he could have survived the past month without suffering some cuts and bruises.

_I'll have to test this out for myself_. He thought

"I gather that you've got some questions for me, so ask up. You probably won't have many chances like this to get information for free."

Joshua nodded understanding and asked, "Guess I'll just start off with, 'what are you?'."

Bob cackled and slapped his knee, "I knew that one was coming! Given the way you reacted to me when you first saw me, I guessed you had either never seen a Ghoul, or you've only met the feral ones."

"Ghouls?" Josh inquired.

"Yah, ghouls, that's what we call ourselves. We are what happens to humans that get to large a dose of radiation and don't have the good sense to die."

"A human with a severe case of Necrosis?" Joshua offered his simplified version of bobs description.

"A what?"

"sorry, I mean, you skin starts rotting?"

"Oh," Bob looked confused for a moment as he thought about it for a moment then continued. "well, that's not the only thing we get from the transformation. We can feed off of radiation and it heals us. And we get an increased metabolism, so we heal about twice as fast as most humans. All except for you." He pointed a log bonny digit at Josh, "I've never met someone that heals as quick as you. You're like a Super-Mutant on steroids."

"Super mutants? What are they?"

"Another even more fucked up version of humans, they are humans that have been transformed into giants muscle bound monsters with a hankering for human flesh, but they aren't crazy. They're just evil."

"We'll, I met a few creatures that looked a lot like ghouls a little over a week ago in an abandoned building off the high way. They looked a lot like you, but they were hunched over, and they looked a little malnourished. And they didn't wear any clothes."

"how many?"

"About a dozen or so."

"And you survived?" bob was dumbfounded, "How in the hell did you do that?"

Josh shrugged. "It wasn't easy, and I was actually pretty certain that I didn't for a few minutes but I managed to get away."

Bob just stared at him for a second in wonder then shook himself out of his reverie and smirked. "Bet it didn't hurt to heal like a super mutant though." After shaking his head in amusement he continued. "yep, it's just as I thought. You had a run in with a bunch of ferals. Those are ghouls that go crazy and lose their sanity. They basically really DO turn into zombies."

"That's good to know."

Bob gave him an incredulous look. "No… it's great to know; now you'll be able to tell the difference."

Joshua smirked lightly, "Meaning you won't be getting slugged in the gut so often?"

"Right"

Joshua shook his head in amusement and looked around the room, thinking about what to ask next.

Bob beat him to it. Completely unknown to Josh, Bob had a very serious problem, and it looked as if this kid could be the answer he'd been looking for but he couldn't just come right out and ask him to fix it, he needed to build some rep with this kid, see what kind of man he was. but he would have to make it fast. He could already feel the insanity in him stirring. He needed someone to watch out for his little treasure.

"I tell you what, Kid. I've got a proposition for you."

"Alright…" he paused, "what is it?"

"Since your new out here and haven't had a lot of training on living in a wasteland you could stick around with us and I can teach you everything you will ever need to know about it."

He was quiet for a moment considering, than he asked, "What's the catch?"

Bob smiled dangerously, "no catch. If you stick around so will your skills, I have never heard of a man that can a draw as fast as how Lindsey described you did, and from all the shooting I heard, she's dead right. There ain't a person I know in this world that could hope to outshoot you. With a bit of training, you would be unstoppable." Then he shrugged and pointed to himself and laying a hand on Lindsey's sleeping form. "You sticking around us means we get to live a bit longer."

Josh fell quite for a few long moments as he contemplated the deal and int's possible ramification but when the younger man looked down at Lindsey and a happy glint passed through his eye bob knew he had him.

"Alright Bob," he said thrusting out a hand. "You've got a deal."

With a shake they sealed the deal but then an inquisitive look crossed his face and Josh said "One more question though."

"Yeah, what is it?"

Josh pointed to a small bag of caps that was tied to Bobs belt and asked, "what are the caps for?"

Bob threw his head back in a laugh.

_This is going to take a while_. He thought mirthfully. _At least the kid is smart._

After his laughing subsided he started explaining to his newest friend the intricacies of his new home.

* * *

**Thoughts, Comments, Concerns? Ideas floating around you head about the story? leave a review. if not leave one anyways. i appreciate any thoughts you have to share.**

**Till next time :D**


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